 Prof Gaetan Borgonie from the University of Ghent, Belgium.
Nematodes are among the oldest metazoans and have conquered nearly every conceivable niche on the planet. Many are free-living feeding on bacteria, but some cause considerable losses in agriculture or parasitize animals with devastating consequences. They are wormlike, simple metazoans, some of which have developed the ability to survive harsh conditions.
The search for nematodes in the ultra deep underground reflects a belief, based on years of observing the remarkable staying power of nematodes, that the ultra deep underground may harbor more than just unicellular extremophiles. To that end samples of fissure water are being taken in some of the deepest mines in the world in search for these animals.
Currently we are searching the deep mines of the Wits Goldfields for that elusive "nema". |